"Achilles' is real deal

Allan Ulrich, EXAMINER DANCE CRITIC

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, November 8, 1997

THERE have been few more joyful moments on the dance scene this year than one that occurs midway through DV8 Physical Theatre's sensational "Enter Achilles" running at the Center for the Arts Theater, Yerba Buena Gardens, through Sunday afternoon.

A slightly effete young man, an intruder in a British pub, has been dancing a wistful duet with a drinking glass when he suddenly is noticed by the denizens of the bar. They accost and surround him menacingly. John Williams' movie music blasts from the speakers. The man spins and spins, his clothes fall away and he stands revealed in a Superman costume, cape and all.

And there have been few more shocking props encountered on a local stage this year than the blow-up plastic doll that serves as a reliable companion to one fellow until it meets a grisly end. We are in a world of shifting power games, unspoken sexual longings and an almost tragic ignorance of the self.

It is not the world of "Swan Lake." And it is not the world of the strenuously wrought postmodernism that seems to fill our local performance spaces weekly. This is the genuine article.

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Founded by Lloyd Newson in 1986 and only now enjoying its Bay Area debut, DV8 - it stands for Dance Plus Video 8, but the pun is extremely apt - is one of the world's most unusual and most unclassifiable companies. And "Enter Achilles" is a decidedly adult and altogether unforgettable experience.

It starts in a bedroom with a man, his doll, his dreams of semi-draped men and his (ignored) girlfriend on the phone. It moves to a barroom in which a mirrored wall also suggests a dance studio. The seven men who preen, meet, mate, brawl and occasionally dance there for 75 uninterrupted minutes share in a hell of their own devising.

Chances are you have never seen anything like it - in a dance performance. Newson developed "Enter Achilles" as a collective endeavor, one dedicated to both physical and emotional risk. The result is a world in which macho conformity is the rule, friendship is perceived as perversion and aspirations are damned as The Other.

Yet, Newson's cry of protest against an unfeeling world is plotted with an electrifying theatrical intuition. The structure of "Enter Achilles" traces a rising arc of desperation in which the tormentor achieves his comeuppance.

And the vocabulary slightly will stretch anyone's definition of dance. As the cast arrives, it eases into choreographed confrontations, many adapted from American contact improvisation. A friendly pat on the back escalates into a boxing match and body flips. A spilled drink precipitates an attack on the jugular.

But confrontations also metamorphose into dance. Newson's timing - giving the illusion of spontaneity, while plotting every move down to the most minute squiggle - is a gift all dance makers might envy.

Sporadically, a group meets in a skewed unison, but these sequences seem fragile. This is a community marked by discord and refracted, pent-up hostilities. It is a community that is having none of British tradition - the familiar hymn, "To Thee I Vow My Country," mercilessly is parodied. The final anthem, "The Impossible Dream," delivered by a performer in an ominously blue light, has never sounded more banal.

Redemption is not possible in a community that banishes its sexual renegades. But there are private moments in which the imagination somehow transcends the grime and takes wing.

It happens when the Superman figure climbs a rope and lures another man to begin an ascent in one of the most lyrical aerial ballets one will see. It happens, too, when the sound of an accordion sends one chap tumbling across the stage. And it happens again when another dancer suddenly straightens his back and finds himself caught up in an Irish reel. A second performer joins him. It may be the only intimate moment they will share, and it's bewitching as much for what is said as for what remains unspoken.

Newson is a remarkable imagist. The Superman traps one of the bullies, tears his clothes away and spritzes a shaving cream "Z" over his chest. Nobody can walk away from

I mention these artists, because sponsoring San Francisco Performances, with singular ineptitude, ran out of programs Friday. Good luck, if you're attending the repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. or Sunday at 2 p.m.

For DV8 tickets, call (415) 677-0334.&lt;

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